Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi hasn't been found guilty of plagiarism despite reports, source says

Despite what you may have heard this week, Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi has not been found guilty of plagiarizing his 2021 film A Hero. The legal proceedings have only just begun.

Azadeh Masihzadeh, a former film student of Farhadi's, accused the director of stealing the idea for A Hero from her documentary All Winners All Losers, which was made during a workshop he oversaw.

The Hollywood Reporter initially reported that a court in Tehran found Farhadi guilty of violating Masihzadeh's copyright on the documentary, plagiarizing key elements without crediting Masihzadeh. However, this was not in fact a court ruling and there has been no conviction, sources familiar with the situation tell EW.

An investigator was assigned to determine whether Masihzadeh's claims should be referred to the courts. French producer Alexandre Mallet-Guy of Momento Production, which is Farhadi's representation in the United States, said in a statement obtained by EW that the investigator dismissed two of Masihzadeh's three claims without referring them to the courts.

The investigator dismissed assertions that the reputation of the former prisoner, who's the basis for A Hero, has been damaged, and that Masihzadeh was entitled to a share of revenues derived from the exploitation of the film, according to Mallet-Guy.

Masihzadeh's copyright claim will now go on to court, but the judge's initial ruling can still be challenged in the appellate court, per legal proceedings in Iran.

"We firmly believe that the court will dismiss Ms. Masihzadeh, who cannot claim ownership on matters in the public domain given that the prisoner's story has been disclosed in both press articles and TV reports years before Mrs. Masihzadeh's documentary was published," Mallet-Guy said in his statement. "Various experts in Iran have already published articles analyzing this case and concluding in favor of Asghar."

"I think it is important to emphasize here that A Hero, like Asghar Farhadi's other films, features complex situations where the lives of the characters are built upon one another," he continued. "The story of this former prisoner finding gold in the street and giving it back to its owner is only the starting point of the plot of A Hero. The remaining is Asghar's pure creation."

A Hero follows a man named Rahim, played by actor Amir Jadidi, who's jailed in debtor's prison. During his temporary release, he finds a bag of gold coins and tries to return it to its rightful owner.

Farhadi has been lauded for his body of work, including his 2011 film A Separation and 2016's The Salesman, both of which won Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film (a category that has since been updated to Best International Film). A Hero, which he wrote and directed, won the Grand Jury prize when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021.

Farhadi taught a workshop in 2014 where he assigned the students to go and find stories about local heroes. The real-life Shiraz story that served as the basis for A Hero and All Winners All Losers had already been published in newspapers, websites, and local TV. Farhadi selected the story as the subject of these student sessions, and Masihzadeh completed her documentary as part of the workshop.

Farhadi argued that while he based the film on the same real-life figure featured in Masihzadeh's All Winners All Losers, he had independently researched the story. He began working on the film that would become A Hero, which he wrote and directed, in August 2019.

Farhadi maintains that he has a signed letter from several other students in his 2014 workshop refuting claims of plagiarism, as well as a 2021 correspondence from the Kaneh Cinema & The Iranian Alliance of Motion Picture Guilds siding with his claims on the matter.

Farhadi had sued Masihzadeh for defamation, but she was acquitted, as reported by THR.

Related content:

• A Hero movie review: A slow-burn morality tale from a modern master
• Asghar Farhadi finally accepts Oscar on behalf of The Salesman at Cannes
• Iranian director skipping Oscars speaks out at London protest: 'Say no to oppressive political powers'